Official: Seagate notebook drive has shingles

Seagate has delivered on its September 2015 technology announcement with a thin drive for notebooks that uses shingled magnetic media to get to a 2TB capacity level. The 2.5-inch Mobile HDD is 7mm thick (thin?) and weighs 3.17 ounces (90g). It has two platters, a 12MB cache and a 6Gbit/s SATA interface. The peak IO rate is …

[James 51]

There is another place they can be used. Upgraded my desktop to a SSD and the cradle which held it had room for a 2.5" HDD. Next media centre I build will probably have a SSD for the OS and programs and a drive like this for the data all in one bay.

[DJV]

Well, as it's Seagate, I for one will wait until I see some independent, long-term reliability tests done on the thing (by which time SSDs will probably be closer or even lower in price, anyway).

[Dr. Mouse]

(by which time SSDs will probably be closer or even lower in price, anyway)

And will need some independent, long term reliability tests done, to satisfy your previous requirement. By which time faster, cheaper, higher capacity drives will be out.

...And will need some independent, long term reliability tests done, to satisfy your previous requirement. By which time faster, cheaper, higher capacity drives will be out.

...And will need some independent, long term reliability tests done, to satisfy your previous requirement. By which time faster, cheaper, higher capacity drives will be out.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm quite happy to wait for just for the FIRST ssds tests once they come close enough in price, thankyouverymuch :)

[Steven Jones]

Enjoy your waiting.

With an HDD, waiting is precisely what you will be doing. Waiting for your laptop to boot up. Waiting for the patches to be applied. Waiting whilst the HDD stops thrashing around doing heaven knows what for a couple of minutes. Waiting for your application to start up.

Meanwhile, those of use who are less patient will pay the premium and get on doing useful things and not being kept waiting by a mere machine.

[PleebSmasher]

SSDs in cheap laptops

Given less need for 2+ TB in a 2.5" laptop drive, cheap 3D TLC 250 GB SSDs will begin to dominate in the segment. At that capacity, you still have a good amount of storage even though you are taking a hit. The $300 laptop segment still pushes things like 500 GB HDDs and 1366x768 screens, and SSDs will arrive there shortly.

HAMR won't be needed in 2.5" laptop drives, but could eventually (with BPM/etc. added) give us the 1 petabyte desk monsters we dream of. Maybe the personal and entry-level storage market will at least stop declining after more cloud failures and surveillance become apparent.

[Gis Bun]

Re: SSDs in cheap laptops

Less needs according to whom? I know people who can fill up 2+ TB on a desktop with movies and music. Should be the same on a laptop and no need for an external drive.

[the spectacularly refined chap]

Strggling to see an appreciable market

Clearly, you are not going to want one as a system drive so that's primarily two drive laptops, small market. The only other place would be to forget the mobile element and stick them in 2.5" arrays, but those tend to be performance-orientated rather than bulk storage (otherwise you'd go for 3.5" drives) so that leaves you with people who need some performance and some bulk store in the same physically small unit, again must be a fairly small market.

I'm struggling to see why you would even want a lappie drive this big. Most business machines still don't need 200GB yet alone 2TB, particularly on a laptop where the risk of loss is such you want to control precisely what is on the drive. The relentless torrenter home user who wants everything on one machine, possibly, but again you come back to the lack of performance for a system drive especially if they're a gamer.

That leaves... ?

[Daz555]

Does this incorporate Seagate's WOTYL technology? (write once that's your lot) because I've always been a huge fan.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a chance

Having had THREE Seagate drives die so far in 2016, I WONT be trusting my data to another one; yes two were a few years old, but one was still under warranty and all had only light/occasional use.

The warranty'ed drive only had 50GB used out of 1TB, yet managed to develop an unrecoverable fault within 18 months of purchase on a PC only used for basic internet access.

[Gis Bun]

Re: Not a chance

Bad batch or something.

I have twin 1.5TB in my desktop. Now 26 months old. No issues

[Gis Bun]

A drop in hard disk sales year over year but I think part because of SSD purchases.